


l’appel du vide

by staringatstars



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bible Quotes, Forgiveness, Holy Water, Mental Health Issues, Self-Acceptance, Sort Of, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 18:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20971064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatstars/pseuds/staringatstars
Summary: They created each other. In a way.Sitting alone in his flat with a thermos of holy water, Crowley has an interesting conversation with an old friend.





	l’appel du vide

The eighties were a time of change around the world, a generation coming into their own that knew of war and violence and chose to move past it. 

Young and graceful and new. 

Clumsy and searching. 

They stumbled forward, fawns with wobbly legs that stared resolutely ahead. Crowley watched them from the sidelines, sometimes providing guidance, sometimes nudging stones into their path to make their eventual victory all the sweeter. Privately, he wondered where the humans were intending to go. 

Did they know? Did She? 

The decade was nearly done by the time Crowley realized he’d had enough of parties and concerts for a time. Even he could become drained by all the noise and color after a time, and without the angel around, providing a quiet, steady presence he could draw strength from, the exhaustion crept in, dragging down his limbs, making him feel heavy and slow. 

So, he withdrew from the nightlife, returning to his flat with disheveled hair and shadows beneath his golden snake eyes. If he wasn’t careful, he’d wind up sleeping through the end of the twentieth century. With that in mind, he avoided the bedroom, giving it a wide berth as he peeled off his jacket and tossed it carelessly onto his throne. 

The thermos was exactly where he’d left it - sitting untouched on his marble table.

It seemed to have developed a presence of its own over the years.

He’d promised Aziraphale he'd never use it to harm himself. Perhaps not in so many words, yet they both knew he’d promised all the same. Still, the tartan thermos served as a temptation, the unexplainable pull of the void stretching beyond the known. 

Hardly even thinking about his actions, Crowley snatched up the thermos and carried it with him into the back room reserved for his plants. The metal was cool to the touch, the sloshing within it almost comforting in spite of the tremendous, irreversible damage it could do to him. 

The purpose of his visit wasn’t to water his plants or even to snarl at them until their leaves trembled with fright. He just… He needed to be someplace quiet. Just for a little while. Just until he was ready to stand and face the world again. So he sank down to the tiles, allowing thick green foliage to brush at his hair and conceal him. 

He was cradling a weapon, a gift. A blessing. 

And he was alone. 

There was no sound to announce her presence. Her bare feet padded silently across the floor and she knelt beside him, dark curls cascading over his shoulder, sun-warm. Crowley glanced at her, taking in the arms made tough and firm from living off the land, hues of charcoal and red clay in the flesh. Her chin was sharp, her cheeks full and healthy. 

He was made of sharp edges, tense and jagged and raw, and she had been hardened by tragedy, suffering, hunger, and age.

There was no softness between them.

Crowley tipped his head back with a sigh.

He felt more than saw her move to sit beside him; lean against him. His was not the rib cage she was born from, and yet, the weight of her pressing on his temple had a quality of completeness to it. “It’s my fault, you know,” he said aloud. “My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault,” though he refused to turn, refused to see. “Humans age. They grow ill, they hurt, they die. You… died. You would have known nothing of suffering, of hunger or thirst, if I hadn’t tempted you.”

“You were angry,” she said without judgment. “You wanted to hurt Her for casting you from Grace.” Crowley bit down on his tongue to prevent any of the pain her words brought from passing his lips. “I do not blame you for it.” Warm breath brushed his ear. She was so close they would touch if he so much as turned to look at her. “After all, the choice wasn’t yours. It was mine. You simply showed me that I had one. That I had many. A countless number of choices waiting to be made.”

“I pushed you to it. You were innocent. Good.” Pure.

Solemnly, she shook her head. “I wasn’t. Neither of us were.” Crowley opened his mouth to protest. He didn’t think he could physically do anything else, but her touch was at his elbow, gentle. “There can be no capacity for good without evil. And you were new, just as I was.” Though the urge to vehemently deny it - they were nothing alike, after all - lessened, there was no hiding the skepticism plain on his face. One of her delicate brows arched. “I was born to follow another, never making any decisions of my own.” There was a spark of anger, like embers in a cold furnace. “Don’t you dare try to take credit for my choices. When I took a bite from the fruit I lost much, but I gained love, children, joy, happiness, laughter. I look at the little ones today, our descendants, and I see Abel’s light, Cain’s mischief, Adam’s heart.” 

“You presented humanity with a choice between bliss and life and all that comes with it. Between innocence and knowledge. And we _chose_, Crowley. Do you understand? We made the world. Together.” As though compelled to by a magnetic force, the demon found he was unable to avoid gazing upon her visage any longer. She was dressed in a garland of leaves, as she had been in Eden. For some reason, he’d expected to see her in more modern fashion, and once the thought was formed, the leaves wove into fabric, transforming into a loose green shirt with billowing sleeves and a skirt the color of tree bark that stretched from her waist to her bare feet. She studied the clothing appraisingly with a hint of a smile. 

There were no stretch marks over her abdomen, Crowley had noticed, though he was sure the real Eve would have borne them. Upon catching him staring, she thoughtfully laid a hand over her stomach, “I don’t think you ever saw them. It was so rare that you made yourself known to us after the children were born.”

“_Unto the woman She said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee._” Crowley screwed his eyes shut. “You were cursed because of me. I was there when you brought Cain into this world, and Abel, too. I heard your screams.”

“_And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life._” The hand at his elbow moved to cover his knuckles, her fingers settling between the spaces. “She cursed us both.” Her gaze darted to his lower limbs. “Do they still-”

“Yesss. Some days more than others. I’ve grown used to it.”

“Thousands of years of questions, begging to understand why you were cast down when you love Her so.” 

He scoffed. “Can hardly fall further, can I?” 

“You can always fall further,” she retorted darkly. The plants shook and trembled. Crowley eyed them impassively. “Aren’t you tired?” 

The demon fixed her with a sharp look. “I slept through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Of the Big Seven, I’d say that Sloth has to be one of my favorites.”

“Wouldn’t you like to sleep for longer? Wouldn’t you like to sleep for eternity?” The temperature in the room plummeted as ice crept into Crowley’s veins. His breath steamed in front of his face, his shades fogged. Meanwhile, her hands, calloused and weathered, drifted over the tartan pattern adorning the thermos, tracing the red stripe until they came to rest upon its white cap. 

One temptation for another.

Crowley’s grip on the cylinder tightened convulsively. “It would destroy me,” he rasped through a throat gone dry. 

“Aren’t you curious to find out what happens next? You don’t know for certain that demons are destroyed. It’s the same for humans. Sometimes, you have to have faith."

“Everything that begins must one day end. There’s no reason to rush to a finish line everyone’s going to reach, eventually.” 

“You are an infection, Serpent.” Crowley flinched. _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa._ “You never doubted, yet your questions planted doubt in others.” Somewhere, a phone began to ring incessantly. It would go unanswered. She crouched over him, teeth bared, pupils blown. “If you had not Fallen,” she said, her mouth pressed against the hollows of his cheek, “Heaven would be empty.”

“Eve.” Upon hearing her name, Eve softened. “That could very well be true, though I think you might be giving me a little too much credit. Maybe that’s the reason She cast me out, but if I don’t know, then there’s no way in Hell or Heaven that _you_ do.” 

Her hands fell to her sides. 

“Cursed to crawl and yet he stands,” she said with a note of pride. 

Crowley relaxed, quirking a half-smile, “Defying Her will _is_ kind of in the job description for a demon,” but Eve was gone. 

She was never there.

After locking up the thermos back in his safe, Crowley took a drive to the countryside. He parked the Bentley on a bluff overlooking the sea. There was no one around for miles. The white-crested waves crashed against the shore, and peace stole over him, soothing the ache he always carried.

He stood so close to the drop he could see the beach below if he looked down. It was the color of cream.

He pivoted on his heel, grinning at the sensation of his heel crushing the grass beneath his feet. Arms outstretched, he tipped backwards, letting gravity pull him off the edge. The wind rushed past him as he plummeted, catching at his hair and clothes. 

It’s not so bad. Falling.

Black wings erupted from his back, picking up on an updraft, and he soared.


End file.
